After a long two weeks that included a bureaucratic tussle, the outbreak of a philosophical battle among Alaskan geocachers, and an emergency trek to the cache by the Ski Boy, Alix, and Gunner, the geocache Oh My Darlin, Clementine was finally approved and listed!
Yea!!!!!!
Turns out that "OMDC" is located on Chugach State Park lands. I had thought where I placed the cache was within the Arctic Valley leaseholding. But nooooooo....This unfortunate turn events meant I had to have a permit from Chugach State Parks. And that's where the difficulty started. The Alaska State Parks do not have an overarching policy regarding geocaches. Each park sets their own policy - or as in the case of Chugach, have not yet got around to it. Let the bureaucratic tussle begin.
As I started to work my way through the morass, I discovered there were several other cachers with the same issue. So, many e-mails later, it was decided that perhaps a statewide organization was the way to go - that way, the state parks would have one group and one interface to deal with as opposed to a bazillion individuals. We also felt that we should be loosely organized. Just a steering committee - no officers, no regular meetings, no dues, no 501 c3, etc. So we set up an organizing event and posted the notice.
Round Two - let the philosophical battle begin. Alaskans are notoriously independent - organizations are not necessarily loved up here. And the posted notes on the event listing certainly demonstrate the antipathy. For your reading entertainment, start at the bottom and read your way up. These comments pretty much run the Alaska philosophical/political spectrum. Some of them are actually very funny.
Well, even with the uproar, the meeting went on as scheduled and was actually pretty friendly. And one positive byproduct of the 'we don't want no stinkin' organization" movement was a blanket permit for Chugach State Parks. One of the cachers used his connections and snagged a blanket permit. Ta da!!!!
That meant that OMDC would finally get approved!!!
But wait. The saga is not yet at an end.
The Alaska cache approver sent me a note saying that everything was a go - except - we had to write the permit number on the outside of the cache. Augh!!! The cache was already placed!!!!!
But wait again. All is not lost!
In ride, the Ski Boy, Alix, and Gunner to the rescue!!!! Monday afternoon, the intrepid trio did an emergency hike up Arctic Valley to OMDC. The Ski Boy performed several tasks including stenciling the permit number on the cache and roping the cache to the tree that it was hidden uder. The rope was to prevent the cache from tumbling down the rock face. Ta da!!!!!
That evening I reported to back to cache approval central that, thanks to the Ski Boy, et al, that the cache was now completely legal. Within minutes, the cache was listed and 12 hours later, we had a first find!
Finally!!!!!!
9:18:12 PM 
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